The button box is a Jackson family heirloom, and every single button in the box has a story behind it. When Beverley Jackson becomes confined to a wheelchair after a road accident, Gran gives her the box so Bev can use the stories to occupy her mind and cheer herself up whenever she is feeling down. Bev knows all the stories by heart (she must have a photographic memory or something) and every week she dips into the box for a story to tell. The stories have accumulated not only over the years, but the centuries as well – and they are still growing as Bev makes her own additions from her assorted holidays, friends, teachers, penpals, and even celebrities. Some new additions are being made even as an episode unfolds. In these cases the narrator is the donor, who is telling Bev the story before donating the button to the box.

The buttons come from all walks of life, social classes and cultures across the world and centuries. Therefore the buttons can be used as vehicles to explore a multitude stories that are set in a whole variety of backgrounds, cultures and eras. Since people of both sexes and all ages use buttons, readers get a multitude of different types of people starring in a Button story, including soldiers, beggars, teachers, celebrities, performers, lovers and even a boy or two. The buttons are also educational. For example, readers get snippets of information about the history of buttons and the things people used to do with them. Among them are the game of “touch buttons”, from the bygone days when kids played with everyday items, and charm-string buttons, which were popular with American ladies in the 19th century. The person to add the last button to the string and finish it was the husband-to-be.

A number of the buttons are directly linked to Bev’s family history. The Black Glass button tells the story of how her grandfather and grandmother met; the Black Op-Art button does the same for Bev’s parents. If Bev gets married, no doubt there will be yet another button to tell that tale. The very first button story, that of the Broken Pink Button, tells readers that Bev’s gran wanted a sewing kit for her sixth birthday but her mother said she is too young for it. Gran proved otherwise by sewing the pink button on her cardigan. Sure enough, she got the sewing kit for her birthday. During her birthday party the button got broken, but grandmother keeps it as a “precious memory”.

The buttons tell stories to entertain, educate, inspire or chastise, but nearly always they have a moral of some kind. For example, many buttons tell rags-to-riches stories, such as the Coin Button and Imitation Jewel Button. In these cases their owners kept the buttons to remind them of their origins and keep their feet on the ground. Pity coachman Billy Lowe of the Coachman’s Button tale didn’t do that. Lowe marries into the nobility and becomes so arrogant he turns into a monster. Then, when he is given a coachman’s button (a shopping muddle) it reminds him of his coachman origins and thereafter he wears the button inside his sleeve to keep reminding himself. Bev’s friend, Prue Holt, who has overheard the story and realised she let her own good fortune go to her head, starts doing the same.

Even when a button starts as a mere novelty item it ends up teaching the very message it exhibited as a novelty. One is the Liar Button, which is inscribed with the words, “YOU LIAR”. It is a novelty button but it was actually used to punish a girl who told lies to impress her friends. The T Button is simply a button inscribed with a letter “T”, but it became attached to a story featuring “T’s”. Tara is nicknamed “The Tomorrow Girl” because she is an habitual procrastinator. Then Tara gets a shock when she thinks she has put off one thing too many and become indirectly responsible an accident. Fortunately it turns out to be a false alarm, but Tara resolves to become “Tara the Today Girl”.

Bev is only too happy to give buttons away to people who need them. The Walnut Button which Bev gave to a newcomer named Tara is unusual because the button came into her collection with no known story to tell, but left her collection with one: “The Cracking of Tough Nut Tara”. Tara is so affected by grief that she freezes up and refuses all offers of friendship to avoid further hurt. On her birthday, when the only presents she has received are from her parents, the tough nut finally cracks, realising that she has only made herself even more miserable. Bev takes pity on Tara and gives her a special birthday card with the walnut button sewn on to make a point about what a tough nut she has been. One can just see Tara showing the walnut button to another girl who is rejecting friendship and telling its story to her.

Other buttons tell stories of inspiration, courage, and even equal rights. The motto of the Ladybird Button is “never give up”. The Dog’s Nose Button is an instruction in overcoming stage fright, which Bev uses to buck her mother up when she is nervous about giving a speech. Southpaws will cheer the story of the Daisy Button. In the 1920s, Lena Brown loves sewing but hates her school sewing lessons because the teacher keeps forcing her to sew right-handed although doing so makes her sewing suffer. The teacher is silenced when Lena wins a prize for sewing a blouse left-handed after breaking her right arm.

There are heaps of buttons that warn against judging on appearances. The Volcano Button tells us not to underestimate people who seem shy. The Rusty Raincoat Button and Snake Button warn against intolerance and not being hasty to judge people just because they seem different.

On a related theme, some button stories leave you thinking about something in a different light. The Warden’s Button reminds us that traffic wardens are human beings just like us; they just do an unpopular job. If you think Girl Guides are stuffy and uncool, the Guide Button will have you thinking again; its story relates how a lost dog was reunited with its owner thanks to guide training.

Button stories about kindness and generosity being returned manifold are one of the most popular themes in the strip. For example, the story about Austrian “Tinies” Buttons is about a selfish girl who learns to share her toys when she sees what a poor girl has for a toy – a lump of wood done up as a doll. And if you think you are not talented at anything, the story of the Imitation Jewel Button teaches you that if you are kind, you have the greatest talent of all.

The Acorn Button and Ivory Buttons teach environmental messages, and you could say the Barrel Button has a message about recycling. When a friend is about to throw an old barrel on a bonfire, deeming it useless, Bev stops her with the barrel button story to demonstrate how useful a barrel can be. In the story, a water barrel helps save the day when an American pioneering family is hit by rustlers. The barrel gives its name to the frontier town that springs up soon afterwards.

Even when the button story conveys no explicit moral, one can still be implicit. For example, Bev tells the story of the Eye Button to entertain a child, but we can hear a moral in the story: think outside the box. Nina’s dream of becoming a nurse is shattered because she does not meet the physical requirements. Nina’s parents advise her to set her mind on something else, but she cannot. Then, when Nina uses an ‘eye’ button to mend a toy, an astute neighbour spots the solution. Through her, Nina does become a nurse – at the dolls’ hospital. The Eye Button is one of the button stories on how some of the buttons got people launched on new jobs and careers.

One of the more amusing button stories is the Mattress Button, and its story of how greed (and not caring for your relatives) brought its own punishment. A grasping couple are waiting for their uncle to die so they can seize the fortune he has stashed somewhere. What they don’t know is that the money is hidden in his bedroll – which they have just thrown into a bonfire!

Not all the button stories come from Bev’s collection. She collects button stories during visits, holidays and public exhibitions. A golf club exhibits buttons that were specially made to promote equal rights for women golfers. A priceless dress decorated with pearl buttons is being auctioned and the pearl buttons carry another rags-to-riches story. The Button Church gets its name from three silver buttons given by a poor girl because they were all she had to give. The buttons become an inspiration for the vicar when the church is bombed during the war and has to be rebuilt. The three silver buttons are set in the wall of the church, reinforcing Christ’s message of giving all you have.

Since we have a disabled girl as the star of the show, it is not surprising that a number of the buttons tell stories about the disabled. One example is the Star-Shaped Button. When Emma Drake goes blind she spends a whole year brooding, calling herself a “useless cabbage,” refusing to help herself and spurning her parents’ every attempt to buck her up. Finally, Emma changes her mind when her enhanced sense of feel leads the police to the robber who burgled the house. Bev gives the star button to her friend Alison to give her confidence in starting blind school.

Perhaps the best button story of all is the Salvation Army Button, which is reproduced above. This story even prompted a letter to Tammy. The button’s appearance is dull, but Bev considers it her brightest button because the Salvation Army brightens lives, as it did for Milly Hawkins, the daughter of a Victorian beggar-woman. After being orphaned, raised in a cruel orphanage, turned out to learn her own living and finally driven to the brink of suicide, everything turns around when a retired Salvation Army officer gives Milly her jacket. Naturally, Milly joins the Salvation Army.

The Salvation Army Button may have brightened lives, but there are buttons in Bev’s collection that have actually saved lives. For example, the Soldier’s Button is about a World War I soldier who is dying from his injuries. His buttons save his life: they reflect moonlight and get him spotted by friendly locals. The Horn Buttons (made from the hooves of cattle) save the life of a tearaway boy who has got himself into one scrape too many: he is dangling by his braces and could plunge to his death unless those horn buttons live up to their promise.

The only thing missing from the button collection is the supernatural. However, Alison Christie said in an interview that she intended the strip to end with Bev regaining the use of her legs while reaching for a button, implying that there was something supernatural about the buttons all along. If this ending had been used, it would most likely have been in Tammy’s final issue before her merge into Girl. However, it never happened due to Tammy’s sudden disappearance after 23 June 1984 from a strike. The last published Button Box story appeared 16 June 1984 and was a regular story. No Button Box story appears in the last published issue of Tammy.

In the first decade of the 20th century Dulcie (short for Dulcima) Dobbs, a country girl, has to transfer to a town school because of changes in the school system. Being a country girl makes Dulcie a target for prejudice and potential bullying from rich girl Annie Archer (her father’s cotton mill makes him a big cheese in town) and her gang. Once Annie realises Dulcie is so naïve and lacking in perception, and hearing that teacher Miss Brittle applies the dunce’s hat, she and her gang start pulling dirty tricks to sabotage Dulcie’s schoolwork and make her look the class dunce, just so they can get a great big kick out of seeing her wear the dunce’s hat. The whole class is in on it; after all, nobody could miss tricks like diverting the teacher’s attention so Annie can sneak up and mess up Dulcie’s answers on the blackboard. But nobody seems to have any conscience.

Dulcie is so naïve that she can’t pick up on what’s going on, not even when it’s staring at her right in the face. Whenever she does think someone might be causing trouble, she dismisses it because nobody can be that wicked, surely?

Miss Brittle’s application of the dunce’s hat is so harsh that it’s not confined to the classroom. Dulcie has to wear it all the way home and when walking from home to school, so the whole town sees her humiliation. She has to let her father see her wearing the hat but say nothing about it – just let him see for himself. Fortunately for Dulcie, something always seems to happen one way or other that prevents Dad from even seeing the dunce’s hat. Right up to the end of the story he remains thankfully unaware of her shame. Presumably Miss Brittle does not issue school reports to parents either.

The only thing that makes things bearable for Dulcie is finding the hat has all sorts of uses because of its cone shape. When Dulcie finds dogs chasing a rabbit, she saves the rabbit by blocking the dogs’ entrance to its burrow with the hat. When the vicar’s upset because the tip of his steeple got blown away by a storm and a church VIP is coming, Dulcie climbs the steeple and puts the hat there as an interim tip. The vicar is quite surprised to find his steeple suddenly looking miraculously undamaged, but never gets the chance to find out why. A sick boy wants to see a unicorn. Dulcie puts the dunce’s hat on Dad’s horse so it will look like a unicorn from a distance, which sets the boy on the road to recovery. These and other uses for the hat cause a curious love/hate relationship to develop between Dulcie and her hat.

All the same, Dulcie wants to get rid of her hat. But she has no chance while Annie’s campaign continues to interfere with her schoolwork and she seems to half-believe she really is stupid.

Then Dulcie meets a tramp called Gentleman George after saving his cat. George can’t believe Dulcie is stupid. After testing her out, he says her answers were correct, so she is not a dunce. So when Annie next sabotages Dulcie, she is finally forced to suspect that someone is causing trouble for her. And her first suspect is Annie Archer.

Unfortunately Annie realises Dulcie suspects her. To put her off the scent (which works), she suddenly comes over all friendly to Dulcie and invites her to her party. Also, Annie has another reason to invite Dulcie: to pull even more dirty tricks on Dulcie at the party, which includes tricking her into wearing her dunce hat at the party.

However, the dunce hat at the party eventually has Annie laughing on the other side of her face when the 101 uses for it come into effect again. This time it’s a fluke rather than quick thinking on Dulcie’s part, but it does Mr Archer such a good turn that he’s full of praises and gratitude for Dulcie.

This makes Annie so furious that she’s no longer content with getting kicks out of Dulcie in the dunce’s hat. Now she wants to destroy Dulcie completely. To this end she has her maid make a fake dunce’s hat and (unwisely?) tells her why: “I’ll have my own dunce’s hat and get Dulcie Dobbs into her deepest trouble yet!”

Then Miss Brittle announces that there will be an end-of-term test on all subjects the following day (which gives the girls only one night for revision!). Most unwisely, she leaves the test papers out overnight instead of keeping them locked away. Isn’t she at all worried about exam cheats?

As it turns out, not securing the test papers gives Miss Brittle a far bigger problem than exam cheats. Annie sneaks into the school and pours ink all over the papers. She is wearing the fake dunce hat while doing so and making sure the caretaker sees this. The idea, of course, is to frame Dulcie for ruining the papers and get her expelled.

Sure enough, Miss Brittle and the caretaker are waiting for Dulcie next morning and all set to expel her for ruining the papers. Protests of innocence are unavailing. Miss Brittle sends the girls to fetch Mr Dobbs from the market. In the most ironic remark of the story, Miss Brittle tells Dulcie that she is a dunce, will always be one, and be “useless – like that hat!” But it won’t be long before Miss Brittle will be eating those particular words.

All of a sudden the furnaces set the school on fire. Miss Brittle and the caretaker get trapped when part of the roof collapses and Miss Brittle yells at Dulcie to fetch water. But the roof fall has crushed the buckets, so Dulcie uses her hat instead. Still think the hat is useless, Miss Brittle?

Mr Dobbs, Gentleman George and others soon see the school’s on fire, and know Dulcie’s in there. The fire brigade will take time to arrive, so they rally around with bucket chains. Dulcie continues to do her bit with the hat, but it’s not enough. Then the end gets burned, so now she can’t fetch water anymore. Then more of the roof collapses and Miss Brittle and the caretaker need air. So Dulcie applies one final use for the hat – use it as a breathing tube for them. Then the fire destroys the hat altogether; it’s a real inferno now.

Fortunately the fire brigade has finally arrived. The firemen rescue the trapped people and Dad pulls Dulcie out. The girls that had helped Annie make Dulcie’s life such a misery with the hat now cheer her for the two lives she saved. But not Annie herself – she’s off to destroy the fake dunce hat and incriminating evidence against her. However, when Annie arrives home she finds her father with the hat and the maid. The maid must have informed him what she knows because he tells Annie: “I think I know it all now. You’ve done enough damage. That fire could have reached my mill!”

Okay, so maybe Mr Archer hasn’t got things quite right. But that’s how Miss Brittle gets put straight about everything. In hospital a more human Miss Brittle informs Dulcie of this, and that Annie has been sent to a private school. Miss Brittle says that when school resumes she has a feeling she will see a very different Dulcie Dobbs. We also get the feeling Dulcie will be seeing a very different Miss Brittle who won’t be using the dunce’s hat on any more pupils.

There is one last echo of the dunce’s hat when Dulcie is surprised to receive another pointed hat. But it’s a more savoury one this time – a pointed princess hat. Everyone wants Dulcie to be the town carnival princess in honour of her heroism.

Thoughts

DCT ran hundreds of serials about a girl secretly causing trouble for another, whether it’s out of jealousy, personal gain, selfishness, revenge, or just for kicks as Annie does. However, it was less common for IPC to use this formula. So this IPC story is unusual for being an exception to the rule.

Annie taking her spite to a whole new level to destroy Dulcie is not unusual for this type of formula. It’s often what takes the story to its climax and ultimate resolution. The troublemaker gets bored of the game, or gets scared she’ll be found out, or gets her nose put out of joint like Annie does, so that’s when she tries to get rid of her victim altogether. But it leads to her undoing, as is the case with Annie. This is a most effective way of catching Annie out. There was no chance of Dulcie doing so, and Annie was way too spiteful to become remorseful.

However, the story is even more unusual for a whole class to be in on the game. Usually – and more credibly – it’s just one sole troublemaker working secretly. It really is stretching credibility for a whole class to help Annie play those dirty tricks on Dulcie and nobody speak up about it or try to help Dulcie. Isn’t there one person in the whole class who is kind and won’t have any of it? We never see one at all, but you’d think there would be someone. Or do they all get in behind Annie because her father is so important in town?

The situation is not helped by Dulcie’s personality. Like Cherry Campbell in “No Cheers for Cherry”, Dulcie is just too naïve and good-natured to realise what’s going on, not even when it stares at her right in the face. It’s so infuriating. But as with Cherry, Dulcie is sharp in other ways, which helps her to survive. Unlike Cherry though, Dulcie does realise that it is doing so. Dulcie’s true intelligence is best seen in the ways she can think fast in finding ways to put her hat to good use and helping others. This helps to make her situation more bearable and make the hat as much a friend as a badge of shame that she wants to be rid of. The test Gentleman George gives Dulcie also indicates she would be top of the class if not for Annie and her dirty tricks.

There are a lot of contrivances in this story, such as Mr Dobbs remaining totally in the dark about the hat because something always happens to prevent him from seeing it. Some of the 101 uses for the dunce hat come across as a bit silly, such as Gentleman George using it as a megaphone. And as already stated, it is hard to believe a whole class would play those dirty tricks on Dulcie without anyone going against it. Yet we still follow the story for the same reason we always follow this type of “troublemaker” story – we want to know how the troublemaker will be caught out.

Perhaps we should spare a moment for the dunce’s hat itself. Miss Brittle deemed it useless, fit only to shame a slow pupil into doing better. Nowadays we regard the dunce’s hat as a product of less enlightened times that is thankfully no more. So it is a really delightful twist that the dunce hat turns out to have so many uses in the story that are far more savoury than what it was invented for. If the dunce hat could speak about that, what would it say to Miss Brittle who called it useless – “don’t underestimate me!”, perhaps? All the same, we still say “good riddance” when the dunce’s hat gets destroyed at the end of the story. Dulcie’s dunce hat may have had its uses, but it is still a hated object.

The Visitor (artist Tony Coleman) – Strange Stories from the Mist text story

Bessie Bunter

Plain as Pearl (artist Juliana Buch)

Cut-Glass Crystal (artist Tony Coleman)

Running Rosie Lee (artist José Casanovas)

The Loneliest Girl in the World (artist Jaume Rumeu)

In the previous entry we profiled the Tammy that abolishes the Cover Girls and the logo that Tammy had used since her first issue. So now we take a step back and take a look at the issue that was the last to use them. So what did the Cover Girls do for their swansong? As you can see, they had a very hair-raising experience!

Of course the issue has a preview of the new-look Tammy that will be launched the following issue. It starts off with the “great news” blurb, and it is definitely much better news than saying the comic will be merging with another next issue.

After an absence of several years, Jed and Gert finally return to the pages of Bella. They have fallen on such evil days after Jed gets injured that they’re squatting, in debt, and unable to resume their window cleaning business. Bella feels so sorry for them despite the cruelties they inflicted on her in the past that she helps to revive their business. Will this be the beginning of Bella having improved relations with them though, or will they go back to the Jed and Gert of old? And there is still the matter of how Bella is going to get back into gymnastics.

This is the last issue to have the Misty text stories, which were revived during the merger. It’s a cautionary tale about not messing with blood pacts, especially when they’re sworn on the Bible.

Bessie Bunter makes one of the intermittent appearances she has been making ever since Misty joined Tammy. Bessie is so determined to go on a camping trip because it’s at an apple orchard that she lies about the weather forecast (stormy) and the state of Miss Stackpole’s tent (ripped). Of course Miss Stackpole discovers the truth on the trip, not to mention all the apples Bessie stashed in her tent. Then she and Bessie meet a lion after straying into a safari park and end up in a tree. Meanwhile, Wee Sue gets chased on the beach twice after a couple of mishaps, but it works out well in the end.

“The Loneliest Girl in the World” reaches its penultimate episode. Thank goodness it is for Karen, because she’s just about at the end of her rope with all these crazy goings-on that now go completely bonkers all around her. She’s discovering that everything and everyone around her is just one great big fake – even the forest and its wildlife. Finally, Karen emerges somewhere that at least looks genuine, but it looks like nothing on Earth – oh golly, could that be it?

At the school’s 200th anniversary celebrations, the school snobs, who have always had it in for “Running Rosie Lee”, recreate the Boston Tea Party by throwing Mr Lee’s tea into the school swimming pool to spite Rosie. But Rosie’s revenge is really surprising. Instead of the American Revolution she’s launching the French Revolution against the snobs. Is she going to send the snobs to the guillotine or something?

In “Dulcie Wears the Dunce’s Hat” (because of the dirty tricks Annie Archer keeps playing on her in class, not because she really is useless at schoolwork), Dulcie is swotting hard for exams so she can get rid of the hat. Little does Dulcie know her hard swotting is a waste of time, because Annie is framing her for ruining the exam papers. For some reason this episode got switched with the one in the next issue, so we don’t see what happens when the school discovers the ruined exam papers for two weeks.

This week’s episode of “Plain as Pearl” shows more and more of what vanity, spoiling and pretty looks have done to make Claire a mean, selfish type and why Pearl is so right to keep her modelling job a secret from her. But at the end of the episode Claire could discover it when she drops in to Pearl’s friend Kathy’s house while Pearl is trying on her modelling clothes.

In “Cut-Glass Crystal”, Crystal’s mother and grandmother arrive to take her away from Pitedge. Dad is furious about it. That’s pretty rich of him, considering how hard he has been on Crystal. Crystal has considerable reason to leave Pitedge because she has been such a misfit there, but now there are loyalties to consider. So what will happen?

This issue of Tammy is a milestone in Tammy’s history. Tammy does away with the logo she has used ever since her first issue (with some tweaks) in favour of one with a more modern and heavier typeset. She still has the Misty logo underneath, though.

Tammy also does away with the Cover Girls, who have graced her cover ever since Sandie merged with Tammy. So that’s John Richardson out of a job. The Tammy covers are using a style similar to the one that Jinty used in her early years before she started using story panels: put the opening page of a story on the cover. However, in this case it was one or two of the first panels, used as splash panels on the whole cover, as opposed to resizing the whole of the first page to fit on the cover. So the story still ran for three pages inside. For the most part it was Bella, as is the case here. Putting Bella directly on the cover must have attracted even more readers to her and to Tammy. Not to mention seeing Bella in full colour. Now and then Bella was on hiatus, so Tammy used other serials on the cover. This style was used for Tammy’s covers throughout 1981 and the Jinty merger. It ended with the 10 July 1982 issue.

The new look Tammy also has some new stories to match. The first is a new Bella story. Bella is helping Uncle Jed and Aunt Gert revive their window cleaning business after Jed’s back injury put it out of action and they have been reduced to squatting. So far Jed and Gert have not mistreated Bella the way they used to, but trouble comes in another form. A gang of hooligans blackmail Bella into one of their schemes, threatening to report her relatives for squatting. Then the scheme goes badly wrong when they are attacked by guard dogs.

Tammy also begins another adaptation, that of “The Black Stallion”. But it is the new serial “Sandy and Steve” that is the most striking, and must have caught readers by a most delightful surprise. For the first time, Tammy is running a boyfriend serial. This was really radical for the time, because at that stage girls’ comics did not run boyfriend serials. Boys and boyfriends, when they appeared, were on the periphery. It’s no wonder Sandy became so popular in Tammy. She spawned two sequels, the last of which had her finally having a boyfriend that she and her father could both agree upon. For the first story, though, Dad does not approve of Sandy dating Steve because he’s a real snob and regards Steve as “riff-raff”. So Dad begins his interfering habit of pairing Sandy up with boys that he deems suitable. Unfortunately the boy’s class and business/political connections with the boy’s parents are what dictate Dad’s choices of ‘suitable’ boyfriends for Sandy. He has no consideration for Sandy’s tastes or wishes. Heaven forbid this man ever goes into the dating agency business!

Also new is Tammy’s “Chatterbox” letters page, which includes a pen friends section.

Three serials end this week, which would open up space for more new serials to match the new-look Tammy. In “Running Rosie Lee” (abbreviated to “Rosie Lee” in the issue) the tea theme that’s been running throughout the story ends with it running up against its rival – coffee. “Cut-Glass Crystal” decides to stay on in her father’s hometown of Pitedge despite all the difficulties she has been having there.

The ending for “The Loneliest Girl in the World” is one of the most memorable ever in girls’ comics and still crops up in comic book discussions. In fact, the entry has been updated to include a scan of the episode below. Karen Chalmers finally learns the human race destroyed itself in a worldwide nuclear war and she is the last human. She begs the aliens who rescued her and tried to hide the truth from her to send her back in time before the war so she can die with her parents instead. Moreover, Karen goes back without losing her memory of what happened in the story (as happened in “The Human Zoo”), so she knows what is coming to her and her parents. The story looks like it was originally written for Misty.

Click thru

Something very odd happened with this week’s issue of “Dulcie Wears the Dunce’s Hat”: the episodes for this week and last week got swapped. Anyway, in the episode we do get, spiteful Annie Archer takes her tricks up the notch that so many troublemakers do, and it’s the notch that always advances the story to its climax and ultimately, its resolution. Annie is no longer content with getting kicks out keeping Dulcie in the dunce’s hat by sabotaging her schoolwork. After Dulcie unknowingly puts Annie’s nose out of joint in this episode she’s out to destroy Dulcie altogether.

Juliana Buch has started on Sandy while still drawing another of Tammy’s popular serials, “Plain as Pearl”. This could be a sign that Pearl is beginning to reach the end. Pearl Kent has taken a job as a model to raise the money to send her sick mother on holiday. However she has to keep it secret from her foster family or the daughter Claire will be jealous and start spitefully interfering. Now this makes a change, having the protagonist actually anticipating a thing like this instead of the usual format of the antagonist causing trouble for the protagonist behind her back. The episode opens with Pearl having a close call with Claire, but now there’s another problem – Mum has had such a serious relapse and is so unresponsive to treatment that she may never be fit enough for the holiday.

In “Worlds Apart”, comeuppance begins for the vain, power-mad Samantha who tyrannises her fairytale dream world. It comes in the form of Mo’s mother, who’s a witch in this world. She turns Samantha into a frog. Yay witch!

Unfortunately there is no comeuppance for the tyrannical, power-mad headmaster in “Dracula’s Daughter”. Two of the girls’ friends try, but they fail. He’s now driven the girls’ favourite teacher out with his conduct, which inflames their hatred of him even more. And his hapless daughter Lydia is made to suffer for it.

Pam’s now started music training with her trombone. She’s beginning to wonder if it was a good idea because the demands are interfering with her other interests at school. Looks like a test of resolve here. Will Pam persist and be glad of it, or will she decide the trombone’s more trouble than it’s worth?

The dogs’ home can’t keep up with Fagin’s appetite any more than the Twists could; he keeps gobbling up the other dogs’ food, leaving them hungry and growling at him. He either has to be rehomed or put down, so an ad goes into the newspaper. Olivia is praying someone with a big heart will take Fagin. But the ad looks off-putting: “Home with never ending food supply wanted, for ever-hungry mongrel”. Something really has to happen in the final episode next week if Fagin is to stay alive, much less continue as anyone’s pet with that appetite of his.

The Gypsy Rose story is yet another recycled Strange Story, which was also reprinted in the Girl Picture Story Library as “The Crook Catchers”. “Techniques for fighting crime have changed over the centuries”, but it looks like one thing has stayed the same – supernatural help in one form or other. And this particular form of supernatural help stretches across the centuries to nail a man wanted for aggravated robbery.

Sir Roger is horrified when Gaye goes on a diet and keep-fit phase and drags him into it. Will his tricks to stop her succeed or will she out-trick him yet again?

The hijinks on Tansy’s camping holiday continue, and of course there just has to be a storm to wash everything out. But for June and Tansy, there’s a bright side to it: the males, who have been getting on their nerves, cop the worst from the storm and look like drowned rats.

“Angela’s Angels” find Sam and treatment starts for him. However, Helen took a nasty burn during the search and has not reported it. It’s going untreated, which could lead to serious trouble.

Kelly goes to Wishing Cove and wishes she could do the things that her shyness prevents her from doing. Her wish comes true in a surprise manner when a sea sprite actually appears to her and tells her to have more faith in herself. She does not realise it’s her friend playing a ruse to instil more confidence in her.

Alley Cat’s back this week, but it looks like he’s being used as a filler as there is no craft feature at all.

Girls’ comics didn’t bother much with Independence Day, but this issue of Jinty does as it’s bang on 4th of July. In honour of the occasion, Jinty presents a quiz on how independent you are: clinging ivy, sturdy oak tree or prickly pear? We also learn 4th of July is Sir Roger’s birthday, so 4th of July doubles for him as a birthday celebration.

Tansy is looking forward to an independence day of a different sort – the day in July when the summer holidays begin, which she has labelled “Freedom Day”. It’s a camping holiday for the Taylors, but of course there is no independence from the usual mayhem with Simon and Peter around.

In Samantha’s world there is anything but independence for the other five girls. Although Samantha’s father is on the throne, it is she who rules her world as a vain, power-mad tyrant and has everything and everyone cater to her beauty. But when Samantha uses Mo as a stool, Mo openly revolts against her. Samantha, who never liked Mo to begin with, responds by clamping her in the stocks – and she is to stay there until she’s nothing but a skeleton.

Pam wants to pursue music, but finding the right instrument is causing problems. After failures with the tuba and trumpet, she finally settles on the trombone with Gran’s help, but we get a hint her music problems won’t end there.

Fagin finally pushes Mum too far and she makes good her threat to put him in the dogs’ home. Even so, Olivia is still struggling to find the food to feed that appetite of his as the dogs’ home looks like it can’t.

The text story is straight out of Misty. Annabel Hirst, a beautiful but arrogant model, has a curse put on her as a punishment that will cause her to “wither and die” at midnight upon the full moon. As the time approaches, Annabel is reluctant to make an appearance because her appearance seems to be withering…

The Gypsy Rose story is another recycled Strange Story. Jean Forbes is a big speedway racing fan and the mascot of her brother’s team. Then she gets a strange dream that something terrible is going to happen to her brother on the speedway. How will this test her status as team mascot?

A boy named Sam is being a real nuisance for “Angela’s Angels”. He’s always trying to get into hospital with phony claims of being ill. He only does it because the hospital is a better place for him than his own home but Angela throws him out. Then Sam’s x-ray reveals a real illness and he needs to be treated immediately – so they have to find him, fast!

Treating pupils like little kids is one of the things Lydia really hates about her father’s ideas of grammar school discipline. But it’s not just the pupils he’s treating like little kids – he’s doing the same with the Castlegate teachers as well. He’s butting in on their lessons and trying to force them teach things his way. How rude! The teachers get so aggravated that they go into an emergency meeting on how to deal with him. The pupils are doing the same with a council of war. My advice: go on strike and mass demonstration against him. Make sure it gets full press coverage! And show the governors: what the hell were you thinking in appointing this gargoyle from the boys’ grammar school as headmaster?

Olivia Twist (yes, and the Oliver Twist references persist throughout the story) wants a dog. Her mother keeps refusing because of the costs of buying and feeding one. After all, they’ve been pretty hard up since Dad died and Mum’s wages wouldn’t go far on a dog in addition to Olivia and her brother Billy.

Undeterred, Olivia saves up to buy a dog in the hope it will make her mother relent. Mum does, but gives the strict condition that it’s a tiny pup, which would surely mean a tiny appetite. However, after Olivia purchases her tiny pup, which she names Fagin (yes, after the Oliver Twist villain), she gets a warning that she and her mother have miscalculated: “You’ll be sorry you bought that tiny scrap! Little ‘uns have the biggest appetites!”

At first Olivia takes no notice, but in due course she finds out how all too right the warning was. The little pup grows into a huge dog, and appetite to match. Fagin eats far more than the whole family combined and his appetite is uncontrollable. It’s costing Mrs Twist a fortune to feed him, and he’s wolfing food right off the Twists’ plates and shopping bags so they end up going short. He starts doing the same with the neighbours, so he’s getting the Twists into trouble with them.

Mum tells Olivia she’s had enough. She will now pay for only one tin of dog food a day, and it’s up to Olivia to stump up the rest to keep Fagin fed. And if there’s any more trouble, Fagin will go to the dogs’ home.

Olivia is determined not to lose Fagin, so she does everything she can to find food for him: jobs to raise money, and finding avenues at school, friends and other networks that can spare food for Fagin. However, Fagin keeps wrecking all the avenues Olivia can find with his big appetite and bursting in to gobble up everything. One by one those avenues get closed off. It also gets Olivia into all sorts of trouble; for example, Olivia unwisely takes Fagin to a birthday party (part of a Mother Hubbard costume) and gets kicked out because Fagin ate the birthday cake. It gets to the point where nobody will give Olivia a job because of her dog’s reputation as a “greedy brute”, so she can’t raise any more money there to pay for his food. The last straw comes when Fagin’s eating wrecks the grocer’s store where Mum works and she nearly loses her job.

After this, it’s definitely the dogs’ home for Fagin. When Olivia sees their menu, she realises there is no way it can meet Fagin’s appetite. Sure enough, Fagin’s soon gobbling up every other dog’s ration in addition to his own, and the kennel maid warns Olivia that he’ll be flung out if this keeps up. Anxious not to let this happen, Olivia does everything she can to supplement Fagin’s food supply at the dogs’ home with additional food, but of course she can’t keep up either. Before long, the manager tells Olivia that Fagin can’t stay anymore. They are going to advertise a home for him. If none is found, Fagin will be put down.

Shocked at the thought of Fagin being put to sleep, Olivia begs her mother to take him back. Mum refuses because she does not want a repeat of the history they had with him. However, nobody takes Fagin. Well, an ad with “Home with never ending food supply wanted, for ever-hungry mongrel” is more likely to have put people off. Mum reclaims Fagin at the last minute because she couldn’t bear the thought of him being destroyed. She takes an additional job to keep Fagin fed, but in a month’s time she collapses from exhaustion and is hospitalised.

Olivia makes the heartbreaking decision to have Fagin destroyed herself for her mother’s sake. However, on the way to the vet there is a lucky break that changes everything. Fagin bursts in on a shoot for a dog food commercial and eats up the dog’s food, but the producer is delighted. He tells Olivia that Fagin is just what they need for their advertising. If Olivia signs him up, she will get a fee and any amount of their dog food free. This gives Fagin his never-ending food supply at last, and he’s paying for it himself. Olivia is very happy to say she will never need to “ask for more” for Fagin again.

Thoughts

This entry achieves one milestone: it completes all our entries on the 1981 Jinty stories. And all of them were written by myself, except for “Land of No Tears”.

“Food for Fagin” started in the same issue as “Dracula’s Daughter”. I like it for its light relief against the grimness of the insufferable, power-mad headmaster in that story. Many readers probably felt the same way.

The story is short, with just six episodes. This works well with how long the Twists can find ways to fill Fagin’s stomach without stretching credibility. However, the Oliver Twist references come across as rather irritating and also unrealistic. What mother would seriously name her daughter Olivia Twist? Perhaps it was meant to add humour to the story. In some cases the Oliver Twist references do work humorously, such as the stingy teacher who is meaner than “any workhouse beadle” in the dinner hall and won’t let Olivia have seconds (to fill Fagin’s stomach). At other times it doesn’t. At least it’s not used much, but the story could have done without it.

There have been plenty of humour stories with problem pets that get their owners into all sorts of scrapes. However, while this one has humorous elements too, there is an emphasis on emotion, what with the increasing desperation as Olivia fights an increasingly losing battle to keep her dog, and then an even more desperate battle to save him from being put to sleep. The irony is that Fagin’s gargantuan appetite keeps messing up Olivia’s efforts to keep him fed and landing her in trouble. In the end, it is a delightful twist to have Fagin’s appetite turn into an asset instead of a liability because it lands him the job on television that not only keeps him fed but also brings in more money for the Twists.

Belinda Binder has had a very bookish upbringing, by parents who think books and studying are everything and scorn non-bookish things – like sport. Even their jobs are bookish: accountant (Dad) and town hall clerk (Mum). Belinda has excelled at studying and teachers praise her for her academic work. But for some reason Belinda is finding the life of a swot and bookworm increasingly unsatisfying.

Unfortunately, in more modern parlance Belinda is a nerd, and this makes her a target for bullying. Her particular enemies are Janet Jones and Dawn Davis, who are the complete opposite of her. Sport is all they bother with at school and they don’t care about classwork at all. They are the school sports champions and have remained unbeaten. So while the form teacher is full of praises about Belinda’s work, which she contrasts with Janet and Dawn’s sloppy work that they rush so they can go out and train, the PE teacher Miss Jagger praises Janet and Dawn while looking down on Belinda. Belinda does not shine at sport, is always left out of it, and her classmates scorn her for it. Even Miss Jagger does: “Really, Belinda Binder – always sprawling all over the place!” she sneers as one of the bullies trips her up.

At this point the English teacher Miss Milton asks Miss Jagger if Belinda can be spared PE in order to help set up the new school library. While doing so, Belinda surprises herself in doing a perfect forward roll in order to avoid a nasty fall off a ladder. Following this, she begins to wonder if she really is as hopeless at sport as she thinks and maybe she will really show the PE class something next time.

So Belinda is shattered when Miss Milton tells her she is being withdrawn from PE at school because she and Miss Jagger have taken the view it is just a waste of time for her. Instead, Belinda will use those periods to assist in the library. Just when Belinda had decided she wasn’t going to be a bookworm anymore and wanted to be a sports champion instead.

Undaunted, Belinda starts using her time in the library to do secret sports training and copying the sports activities she sees out the window. Fortunately for her the new library overlooks the school sports facilities, so she can see all the PE classes that go on there. She sets up stacks up books as hurdles, uses the library desk for vaulting, the shelves to practise gymnastics, the “silence please” board to practise swimming strokes on, and so forth. She even acquires a false book that can be used to smuggle in sports gear.

At home, Belinda rigs up a dummy of herself with her dad’s reading lamp so she can sneak out and train in the streets. She has to do this as Janet and Dawn regularly pass by her window while doing their training and observe her studying.

Belinda seems to be making progress, but has no real yardsticks or overseer to gauge by how much. However, one night something happens that suggests that Belinda may be a more serious rival to Janet and Dawn than she thinks. She found her father left behind a couple of pages of a vital report and needs to be intercepted at the train station fast. As no taxis are available the only option is to run – in pouring rain – so this is the first full test of Belinda’s training. As she sets off, she does not realise she is being tested even more. Janet and Dawn, who have become suspicious of Belinda’s secret training, see her and run to catch up and verify who she is. Belinda does not realise they are following her, but she keeps ahead of them and they fail to catch up. After delivering the papers Belinda finally discovers this, while they say the mystery girl was not a bad runner and therefore couldn’t possibly have been the bookworm.

On another occasion, Belinda has been secretly practising netball throws. Afterwards Janet and Dawn grab Belinda’s false book and start throwing it around. They are astonished when Belinda manages to catch it. Another hint that Belinda is making serious progress.

But of course close calls and slip-ups are inevitable. Eventually Dawn and Janet get so suspicious that they plant themselves in the library (joining the library, ducking out of sports periods) in order to keep an eye on Belinda. So now Belinda can no longer secretly train there.

Then comes sports day. Belinda steals some time to secretly train in the library now that Janet and Dawn are out of the way. However, it is at this time that Belinda gets caught right out. Miss Milton had brought the Binder parents to the library to show them how well their daughter is working there – and they get a horrible shock to see what Belinda has been really using the library for! They take a very dim view of it all, and are not at all impressed at Belinda demonstrating how she has been progressing with sports training using her improvised sports equipment. In their view, Belinda is not an athlete and should stay with books, the way she has been raised.

Belinda goes into outright rebellion at this and decides to prove that she is not a mere bookworm anymore. She breaks away from her angry parents and teacher, runs to the sports field, and demands to enter every event. Miss Jagger is astonished, but allows it. Belinda’s parents are mortified; they think Belinda is about to make a fool of herself in front of everyone. They can do nothing but watch, ironically accepting the invite to sports day they had scorned, but not are not supporting Belinda at all. The whole school expects one big laugh out of the bookworm entering sports day.

However, Belinda’s unorthodox self-training begins to pay off. The pupils are astonished to see the bookworm do better than they expected at the hurdles:

“Hey, the bookworm’s not bad!”

“Not bad at all! She’s only just behind the leaders!”

Belinda comes fourth at the hurdling. She is placed third in gymnastics, and is beginning to earn respect from Miss Jagger. However, the Binder parents remain unmoved.

Ironically, Janet and Dawn are now so worried at Belinda proving more serious competition than expected that they begin to resort to dirty tricks and cheating to stop her rather than their skills and greater experience. At swimming, Janet flashes a mirror in Belinda’s eyes to stop her seeing the turn and enable Dawn to win. However, something makes the reflection flash back into Janet’s eyes, enabling Belinda to see the turn and finish second. Later, Belinda realises it was her mum cleaning her glasses that flashed the light back at Janet.

Finally, there is the 800-metre race, and Belinda is running against Janet. Dawn tries to nobble Belinda by dropping her book under her feet, but is caught red-handed by Miss Milton and the Binder parents. Seeing the dirty trick Dawn tried to play on Belinda, the Binder parents are finally won over and start cheering Belinda on. Encouraged by this, Belinda beats Janet – the first ever to do so – and comes first in the race. Miss Jagger is well and truly astonished at this.

The Binder parents tell Belinda she has taught them a whole new respect for sport and they now see that sports and studies complement each other. Everyone cheers Belinda as she receives her trophy – except for the seething Janet and Dawn.

Thoughts

I have often wondered if this story was the Tammy version of Jinty’s “Tears of a Clown”, which is one reason why I have posted the entry. There are some similarities between Belinda Bookworm and Kathy Clowne: they both wear glasses; they are underrated and friendless at school, which makes them the targets of bullying; they turn to sports training to gain confidence and win respect; they both have indifferent parents and teachers who don’t help them at all until near the end of the story; and they both hope entering school sports day events will get them the respect they want. Bookworm started in Tammy only two months after Clown ended, and Jinty and Tammy shared some writers. So it is possible that Clown was an inspiration for Bookworm.

Whether it was or not, there are huge differences between Bookworm and Clown that make it worthwhile to compare the two stories. While both Belinda and Kathy embark on their respective sports training in order to beat the bullies, Belinda does hers in secret while Kathy keeps striving to prove her talent, but the chief bully (or fate) keeps getting in the way. Belinda is also a more proactive heroine than Kathy, in that her secret sports training is a form of revenge against the bullies a la Revenge of the Nerds. It’s also a rebellion against her bookish upbringing and being labelled a bookworm. There is also an ironic edge to Belinda’s rebellion in that she is using the very thing she has turned her back on – books and libraries. Instead of using them to read she is using them to train, and is showing readers that there is more than one way to use a book.

In regard to the bullying, Belinda does not have it nearly as bad as Kathy. At least the teachers praise Belinda for her academic work. Kathy is bottom of everything at school, because the bullying erodes her confidence and nobody steps in to help her. But when it comes to sport, both Kathy and Belinda want to prove themselves there because that’s where they will earn respect from the people who disparage them. However, it comes in different ways for Kathy and Belinda. Kathy hoped sports day would enable her to prove her talent and win respect. Instead, it is the final humiliation that drives Kathy into running away and setting off a chain of events that redeem the people who bullied or failed her. But for Belinda, sports day is precisely where she proves herself and puts an end to the bullying – by giving the bullies their first-ever defeat at sport and thoroughly humiliating them. The unhelpful parents and school staff redeem themselves in different ways. In the case of Kathy, it’s their realising they have let her down and try to find her after she runs away. In Belinda’s case, it’s foiling the dirty tricks that the bullies start pulling on her, which makes Belinda’s parents more redeeming than Kathy’s.

There are some glaring plot holes that really stretch the story’s credibility. For one thing, no school would withdraw a pupil from PE just because they’re not good at it; only medical grounds would excuse a pupil from PE. Second, when Janet and Dawn get suspicious, they take a rather cut-off-your-nose-to-spite-your-face approach by sitting in the library with Belinda to stop her suspected training. After all, they must loathe sitting in the library when they want to be out there doing sport with Miss Jagger. And how many times can they get away with coming up with excuses to dodge PE in order to sit in the library watching Belinda? And it’s all on mere suspicion – they have no proof. If they had any real sense they would come up with a plan to catch Belinda red-handed in the library. Most glaring of all, how is Belinda able to swim at competition standard on sports day? She is a complete non-swimmer and the only training she has had is practising strokes on the library’s “silence” notice board. The only swimming we see her do in actual water is a few strokes. So how is she able to do competitive swimming against Dawn – hidden power or something? Or did Tammy have Belinda do some actual swimming lessons off panel without telling us?

Plot weaknesses are offset somewhat by Georgetti’s caricatured, cartoony artwork, which provides the humour and helps make the story engaging. In the hands of a straight artist the story would far worked less well. But in the hands of an artist like Giorgetti, improbabilities like using torn-up books to practise long jump and high jump, and shelves to practise gymnastics are more forgiving. This is because they have a dash of humour and give the sense that they are not to be taken too seriously.

It’s Friday the 13th (did you know there is a Friday 13th in a month that begins on a Sunday?). So this issue of Tammy is being profiled to commemorate. It’s not just because the theme on the cover – Dracula vs Tammy – should make it a Halloween issue but isn’t. It’s also because the number 13 is the theme of this issue’s Strange Story, which appears below. Could the mysterious 13th floor in the story have been one inspiration for “The Thirteenth Floor” in Scream!, perhaps? It is a bit like how Scream’s 13th floor works in the way it teaches arrogant Annette a lesson. All that’s missing is Max the computer. Oh well, judge for yourself. It sure looks like Bella Barlow’s Aunt Gert was the inspiration for the workhouse matron anyway.

Click thru

There is no Bella yet. Instead, the first story is part two of “Nurse Grudge”. It was extremely rare for Tammy to have a nursing story (the same went for Jinty). It’s also a revenge story, where Greta Jones starts as a student nurse at her dad’s old hospital to get revenge on the staff who got him dismissed 20 years ago. His old notebook is full of the details of their turning against him – but no details at all on why they turned against him or just what he was dismissed for. Now why did he leave that part out of his journal? Greta has noticed the omission but not looked into it at all before starting her vendetta against the hospital – and perhaps she should have done…?

Tammy’s adaptation of “The Moon Stallion” TV series ends this week. Next week is “The Outcast of Oakbridge”.

Bessie sneaks into town after Miss Stackpole, who is going to a dance. Hijinks ensue with Miss Stackpole and Bessie ending up in the same farmer’s truck and then having to use an old raincoat and sacking against pouring rain while trudging into town. Miss Stackpole finds she has missed the dance because she got her dates muddled, but the raincoat wins her first prize at a tramps’ ball instead.

It’s a real turnabout for Molly Mills in her new story, but it’s one she could well do without. Lady Stanton turns against Molly when a painter prefers to paint Molly than her. Then Molly is very surprised to find her arch-enemy Pickering suddenly coming over to her side and being supportive against Lady Stanton’s jealousy. Now he couldn’t possibly be doing that unless there’s something in it for him – but what? Is he hoping for a group portrait with Molly or something?

From the moment Stephanie “Steve” Sutton has arrived at her father’s archaeological dig, it has been looking more and more like enemies are trying to scare her away. They certainly are doing a very good job of scaring her in this episode. Now she’s being dragged into a terrifying magician’s act.

“My Terrible Twin” is beginning to turn around – but just as she does, her remand home past begins to catch up. First, an unreformed girl from the remand home wants Lindy to help her shoplift, and then swears revenge when Lindy refuses. Then Lindy’s enemy Helen discovers her past and is going to tell the boss!

Sometimes Wee Sue had two-part or even three-part stories, and this is the final episode of one of them. So far her class’s skiing holiday abroad has been disappointing because the whole setup looks a cheat. It turns out to be a troubled business with the owner reduced to running it as a one-man-band (chef, ski instructor, DJ etc) while not having the slightest idea how to do all the roles. Does one of Sue’s famous brainstorms save the day? No, it’s more a lucky fluke (and extremely improbable one) that turns everything around.

Thursday’s legs are mysteriously paralysed after her fall. However, Thursday has no doubt that the evil Union Jack and Julie’s strange grudge against her, which caused the fall, are behind this. Then comes a turning point: Julie is now willing to explain just what her problem is with Thursday.